PensionDanmark, Lægernes and Nordea launch real estate joint venture

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DENMARK – Three Danish pension funds have teamed up to own and build Nordea Bank Denmark's new headquarters in Copenhagen, in a DKK1.3bn (€174m) joint investment.

Commercial pension provider Nordea Life & Pension and labour-market pension funds PensionDanmark and Lægernes Pensionskasse have bought a construction plot in the Ørestad district, next to the headquarters of Danish national broadcaster DR.

Søren Ulslev, director of PensionDanmark Properties, said: "The new headquarters will be perfectly located, and, in Nordea Bank Denmark, we have obtained a solid tenant on a very long contract."

The DKK1.3bn investment will be deployed via the newly established joint company Ejendomspartnerselskabet (property partnership) Grønjordsvej.

Each of the three parties will own one-third of the total investment.

Ulslev said the office complex would be built to be climate friendly.

"All this meets our requirements for a good property investment that will ensure a good and stable return for members," he said.

The pension fund put the expected return on the investment at about 5%.

Construction will start in 2013 once plans have been approved, it said.

The building is due to be finished in 2016, at which point 2,200 staff will move in.

The Nordea Bank Denmark staff will be housed in two buildings with combined space of 46,000 square meters and an 11,000-square-meter cellar.

The investment also includes the option to build two more buildings on neighbouring land, which would increase the total area to 70,000 square meters.

PensionDanmark also said it was buying a commercial property in Copenhagen's Valby district for around DKK130m, which is leased to the Danish Maritime Authority.

The building has 7,400 square meters of space and will house the Danish Maritime Authority (Søfartsstyrelsen) from January 2013.

Karsten Withington Brink, head of real estate at PensionDanmark, said the fund was pleased to be able to add the property to its portfolio.

"It has a solid tenant and, on top of that, is located well in an exciting place, which has developed into a campus area for state authorities," he said.

PensionDanmark said this was the second commercial property it was acquiring in the old industrial quarter on Carl Jacobsens Vej.

In July, the fund invested DKK290m in a building leased to the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority (Konkurrence- og Forbrugerstyrelsen) and the Construction Authority (Bygningsstyrelsen).